If I write a date as 44 BC or 476 AD, you immediately know to what years I am referring.

I would guess that just about anyone junior high age or older in the U.S., Canada, or anywhere in Europe would also immediately recognize that one of those dates is 2055 years ago, and the other is 1535 years ago. (Okay, some of you had to pull out a calculator first.) You all know that BC means “Before Christ,” and many of you may even remember that AD is an abbreviation for the Latin Anno Domini: in the year of our Lord.

PJ Mediareaders being, on average, pretty well educated, you probably even know what happened in 44 BC or 476 AD. (If it has been too many years since you took Western civilization: the first year saw the assassination of Julius Caesar; the second, the fall of Rome to the Germanic barbarians.)

Okay, now: what happens if you see the date 1115 CE? Or 927 BCE? Again, PJ Mediareaders are pretty smart. Even if you haven’t seen these abbreviations for “Before Common Era” and “Common Era,” you can probably guess that BCE and CE are indeed replacements for BC and AD.

But why replace them?

When I was growing up, about the only place you saw BCE or CE was in writings aimed at a Jewish or Jehovah’s Witness audience. In both cases, the goal was to avoid any statement that might imply that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah (Christos, the anointed one, in Greek). American Jews writing for a general audience generally did not use the BCE/CE notation, nor, near as I can tell, did American atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or whatever. Why? Because BC/AD was just a dating system used for communicating with other educated people. No one would have seen the use of it as a confession of faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, here’s the question: how many high school graduates today would immediately know what BCE/CE means?

When I last taught Western civilization, we used Jackson J. Spielvogel’s Western Civilization, 7th ed. Spielvogel’s book used BC/AD for a simple reason: “keeping with current usage by many historians of Western civilization.” Ditto, I would add, for students of Western civilization.

But our college recently switched to a new textbook. In some ways, I like the new textbook a bit more than Spielvogel’s book: more chapters on Rome, fewer on Mesopotamia and Egypt. But there is one aspect of the new book that just makes me roll my eyes: they insist on using BCE/CE — and devote two pages to a discussion justifying the use of them. (I am not identifying the book for two reasons: it’s not alone in the move among textbooks to BCE/CE, and I don’t want any unhinged sorts sending nasty emails to the textbook’s authors. If you work at it a bit, I’m sure that you can find the textbook — but why make it easy for some unhinged person to be nasty?)
Among the justifications the textbook offers for using BCE/CE is that “BC and AD were not used regularly until the end of the eighteenth century. BCE and CE became common in the late twentieth century.” Hmmm. When I searched for “Anno Domini” in books published before 1700, I found 51,700 results. Considering the number of books published before 1700, that’s pretty amazing. (The Latin equivalent of BC, ante Christum natum, is, admittedly, far less common.) More importantly, when precisely did BCE become “common” in the late twentieth century? I suppose if you were writing for a history journal, or for an audience that included large numbers of people who do not regularly use BC/AD, then using politically correct terminology such as BCE/CE makes sense — but in a freshman college text intended for the North American market? No.

It’s not even as if the new abbreviations are really more inclusive. BCE and CE are exactly the same years as BC and AD. They are still putting a stake in the ground around the guessed year of birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and measuring time relative to that same year. The only way in which this qualifies as “multicultural” is that it will not offend any prickly Jews, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or others upset that you are “privileging” Christianity by saying AD instead of some freshly minted abbreviation capable of doing nothing more than signaling one’s sensitivities. (The prickly forms of most of these groups seem to exist more in the fever swamp imaginations of academics than anywhere that I have ever been.)

Yet, the conscious decision to change over will offend the still-large majority of Americans who culturally or religiously identify themselves as Christians.

Admittedly, we are not going to cut off the heads of any professors, or even any hands, so perhaps offending us doesn’t much matter.

But there’s another group that should be offended: those who consider communication important. If I were living in a country where BC and AD were not commonly used, and I wanted to write something that ordinary people would understand, I would take care to put dates in the local system. If were I living in Britain, I would spell appropriately for my audience: colour or italicise, and I would “go to hospital” not “go to the hospital” because my goal is to communicate with minimum distraction. In a textbook aimed at college freshmen, using the less common abbreviations is a form of distraction from the point of the book: to teach history.

Or is it a form of culture war?

Clayton E. Cramer teaches history at the College of Western Idaho. His most recent book is My Brother Ron: A Personal and Social History of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill (2012). He is raising capital for a feature film about the Oberlin Rescue of 1858.

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1.
Spinoneone

Just because you say CE/BCE mean “common era” and “before the common era,” why could/should they not be interpreted to mean “Christian Era,” and “Before the Christian Era?” Or, as an alternative, substitute “current” for “common.” Just a couple of thoughts.

Heck, I thought BCE and CE meant Before Christian Era and Christian Era. If they are supposed to refer to some Common Era, the question becomes “Common to whom?” Certainly not the Chinese, Indian or Muslim areas of the world. At least BC and AD aren’t delusional references to a non-existent “Common Era.”

i thought the same thing and was, frankly, offended when i found ought my heritage was being denigrated.
where are the sensitivity police when you need them?

PS. Thank God, the Old and New Testament God, for the people who work at PJ Media. I don’t care if you are observant, Reformed or even Presbylutheran, thank God for people who are not afraid of searching for truth.
I have smart educated friends who don’t know why I go to church on Sundays. A waste of time. A bunch of fairy tales they have out grown.
Still looking for a greater truth, thankful for those who seek it here.

Again, thank you, PJ Media, especially Vodkapundit, so I catch up on the Sunday am shows I miss.

I also thought that the “CE” in the designation referred to the Christian Era when I first encountered it.

It is my understanding that many Christian scholars believe there was a miscalculation of the date of the birth of Jesus in the calendar we use today. When they try to place the birth and the details given in the bible within the reign of King Herod, they calculate that the Jesus’ birth would have taken place some time between the years 6 BC and 4 BC.

I always thought that this was the reason for the change in designation from BC/AD to BCE/CE. However, with all of the assaults on religious traditions and beliefs I can understand the sensitivity.

No question: Jesus’ birth was likely at least 4 BC. But it’s a bit late now to rechisel all the buildings with new dates. Dionysus Exiguus’ error has been known about a long time. That’s not the motivation.

How hilarious that the left wing moonbats using BCE and CE as a blatantly obvious attack on Christianity which they then justify with gobbledegook and mumbo jumbo still use the Birth of Christ as their start date.

While I admit to being pedantic about many things, I shall not start worrying about common era and anno Dunno until the weather forecaster starts referring to this year as the year 1379 – at which time I shall look for a new planet to live on.

I read a lot, and I read a lot of history. I remember when I first saw the CE and BCE stuff. If I remember right, it was in the James Michener novel “The Source”, which was published in 1965. I read the book probably 10 years later, and it took me a bit to understand what these terms were. I found it confusing and annoying back then, and still to this day don’t really like it. Nevertheless, it’s the trend among academics who are anxious to show how tolerant and receptive of other cultures they are.

I noticed this silliness when my daughters were in high school a little over 10 years ago. The 2002 edition of Palmer, et. al., A History of the Modern World – best Western Civ text still some 62 years after it was first published IMHO – still used BC/AD, but more and more stuff shows the BCE/CE nonsense. I’m not in academica any more, so I ignore the nonsense, but the whiff of political correctness hath become a stench.

If I were you, I’d probably agree with you. But being me, brought up as I was on BCE, I think there are more important things. (We never much used CE, because anything with no suffix was obviously the current counting.)

Your problem will be with those who will want to count differently entirely. In particular those who insist that it is now thirteen hundred and whatever. (That date used to appear in the Jerusalem Post, but I just looked and it doesn’t anymore.) they will likely get militant about it.

By the way, here in Israel, we are allowed to use 5771 on checks and I do. Most roll their eyes at it.

it’s not just that it’s about whether Jesus is the annointed one or not, AD is anno domini (in the year of our Lord) and short for anno incarnatione domini nostri iesu christi (the year of the incarnation of our Lord). so it’s about the deity of Jesus, which is why it’s a sticking point for both JWs and Jews.

i’ve thought long and hard about this one, and it seems appropriately modest for Christian scholars (at least) to exercise a little self-restraint and not impose their theology on the way we date things. As it is, the very fact that the common era is the Christian chronology, and therefore acknowledges the central role of Christian chronology in the making of the modern world and global community, should suffice.

(it’s worth mentioning that Hamas uses this dating system in the anti-Western charter of 1988 – fairly amazing evidence of the penetration of this dating system everywhere.)

i use CE and BCE. it’s like referring to Augustine rather than Saint Augustine. it shows an awareness that not everyone share my point of view, and rather than impose it on others, it’s appropriate to step back a bit.

If this were in a scholarly paper, I would not be so terribly startled or even particularly annoyed. But in a textbook intended for use by freshmen in an American college, it replaces the primary goal–teaching the history of Western Civilization (which has been predominately Christian for a couple thousand years) with what is at best a dubious secondary goal: multiculturalism. It would be like a Western Civ textbook intended for North Americans that decided to use Mayan numbering everywhere instead of the Hindu-Arabic numerals with which we are familiar–in the interests of getting students past their narrow Westernness.

My question to you, then, is how do you reconcile your faith with an uncompromising mandate? For example, you say, “not everyone share[s] my point of view, and rather than impose it on others, it’s appropriate to step back a bit” while the Great Commission TELLS you to “share your point of view.”

There’s a difference between “telling” and “imposing.” There is NO difference between “compromising” and, essentially “denying” your faith by empowering those who say Jesus is not our Savior. (NOT my opinion, btw. Look it up in, oh, KJV, NIV, HCSB or any other translation of our faith’s cornerstone.)

CE & BCE have been used for decades at the college level. It is not a slap at Christianity, rather is is an acknowledgement of time dating.

As someone of Jewish attachment I have always found AD & BC insulting when dealing with Jewish and Israeli history.

If you want to get your panties in a wad? How about reviewing all the new text books that concern history in the middle east? Most of the time you will see Greek, Egyptian, Rome and Mesopotamia. The glaring absence? Israel

The Jews are written out of history…

Repeatedly..

SO the next time you get your shorts in a wad about ce & bce? Just ask what would Jesus do?

What would Jesus do? He’d use the most accurate calendar of them all, the date from Creation. After all, He’d know it.

IS this a culture war? Absolutely, it’s the one even Christians don’t recognize: The War of Gog and Magog, led by the Devil against God, the things of God and the People of God. They hate Christians because we revere Christ. They hate Jews because they gave us Christ. They hate religion because it means that there is a God whom they do not desire to honor. Gog-Satan has his delued followers believing that THEY ARE God, following the original lie: You shall be as God, knowing good and evil (that is, determining them by your own standards as ‘god’.)
By the way…if you read Revelation 20, the next major cataclysmic event is the return of Christ in fire from heaven.

“How about reviewing all the new text books that concern history in the middle east? Most of the time you will see Greek, Egyptian, Rome and Mesopotamia. The glaring absence? Israel”

Actually, well represented and discussed in both the old Western Civ and new Western Civ text we use. And because Judaism is one of the two main sources of Western Civilization, I make rather a point of its importance.

Is this the “new” Western Civ where PC has taken over and has made it a non Western view of Western Civ?

What was exactly, according to this “new” Western Civ, the influence of Judaism on the West?

Western Civ, in a Western view, was based on Christianity, Classical Greece (where Rome came from), and Capitalism. As for Assyria Babylonia and Egypt, they had also nothing to do with Western Civ. In fact they had as much to do with Western Civ as the Chinese, the Meso-Americans or the Sub-Saharan Africans.

The British tend to do this. I recall a friend showing me a review of world history that managed to almost eliminate the Jews from Israel, in spite of thefact that we ruled it for about a thousand years.

Generally, the British seem to write about the “ancient Israelites” without realizing that the people next ddor to them might be able to shed some light on the issue. I’ve seen some real doozies.

As if it is better to proudly promote BC/AD which promotes a Christian outlook overall on historical dating? Doesn’t sound much different than early archaeologists digging to prove bible rather than to see what is there to be found. As it is, BC and AD don’t even properly reflect what they are supposed to, that being the birth of Jesus, as Popes playing with the calendar put their own approximation of Jesus’ birth at 4BC.

BCE/CE simply recognizes the arbitrary system that is the common date.

Right you are. BCE refers to the times before the birth of Jesus and CE to the time after the birth of Jesus. This recognizes the arbitrary system that is firmly anchored in the year of the birth of Jesus Christ.

That’s a clever way to get away from that Christian outlook that you dislike.

The only way out of this heinous Christian plot to torment Jews, Muslims, and historians is to use BCEBINNTAJ and CEBINNTAJ, representing “Before Common Era But I’m Not Necessarily Thinking About Jesus” and “Common Era But I’m Not Necessarily Thinking About Jesus.”

What world are you living in where the Jews have been written out of history?

Since you make a distinction between Jews and Israel, Israel certainly is in the history books – since 1948.

And, what aspect of Jewish civilization in antiquity would supersede that of Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt and Rome? This not a conspiracy among people who don’t even know each other unless you buy into the Jews all having each others phone numbers on 9/11. It is a question of priorities.

Write your own history of the middle east; you don’t have to belong to a guild. You can start with Jewish architecture.

“CE & BCE have been used for decades at the college level. It is not a slap at Christianity, rather is is an acknowledgement of time dating.”

Not when I went to college and not in texts that we used in college. Rather, its in part of an effort to “scrub” from history all types of western-centric references and substitute a new balance that is not based in the west at all:

-Every western figure that does not think as we do today was obviously irredemably rascist and sexist, and we are forever stained stained by whatever they did, even if it was enlightened at the time;

-every remark by Lincoln desparate to hold the union together and avoid the disintegration of the only real republic then on earth is weighted equally with his condemnations of slavery; Jefferson’s pronouncements on liberty are treated as some type of scam, since he had slaves and wasn’t perfect by today’s standards; they teach more about Sally Hemmings now than Alexander Hamilton; (high school grads all know who she is–try Hamilton on them sometime);

-the catholic church gets its historical mentions from all the bad stuff: its almost never balanced by recountings of what other major religions of the time did to non-belivers, or what the church contributed to holding things together for a critical time;

-The US is pilloried for the A bomb, with an undertone of “how could we” all with photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without so much as a page much less photos of US losses in the Paccific, the estimates of casulties on invading Japan not to mention Japan’s ongoig treatment of the Chinese and its experimental emdical units.

BC and AD are uniquely western based. That is why people are trying to scrub them.

The 3rd edition (1797) of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for a start. And Kepler used “in our Common Era” (anno aerae nostrae vulgaris) before King James I’s Authorized Bible was published, which is good enough for me.

The CE / BCE designations are inane for another reason: a reason nicely illustrated by an old joke:

Long ago, in a land much like this one, a young man named Muza Dai Boo was strolling through the town marketplace, perusing the goods for sale, when he felt a great surge of pressure within him. Try as he might, he could not contain it. What sounded forth was a fart of such majesty that hundreds of passers-by turned toward him in shock and astonishment.

Horrified at what he’d done in so public a place, Muza Dai Boo pulled his hood and cloak tightly around him and hurried home, there to pack his few belongings and emigrate to a new land.

In his new city, Muza Dai Boo mastered a trade, married, grew prosperous, fathered sons, and was known to everyone in his community as one of its true pillars, a gentleman of accomplishment, dignity, and refinement. But as the years passed, his children slipped away, his wife died, and his trade palled upon him, he came to miss the land of his birth with an intensity he’d never expected. Knowing that his own time on Earth was drawing near to a close, he resolved to return to his birthplace, there to reacquaint himself with its beauties and see what his countrymen had achieved in his absence. Surely he, and the gaffe that had caused him to emigrate, would have been forgotten long ago.

When he arrived there, he was astonished by what he saw. What had once been a humble town was now a bustling city. Great buildings stood on every corner. The citizenry bustled about with energy and pride. The streets, formerly mere beaten dirt paths, were paved with a marvelous black substance that gleamed in the noon sun. But most wondrous of all was the city’s enormous cathedral. It was built all of marble. Its oaken doors were twenty feet high. Its windows were rich vistas of color and narrative. Its spire seemed to pierce the heavens themselves. It stood at the edge of what Muza recalled as the market square of old.

Helpless before his curiosity, he stopped a passing pedestrian and asked about the cathedral. “Yes,” the man said, smiling, “it’s the accomplishment of which we’re most proud. Indeed, many persons come here to see it, and to worship in it, and for no other reason.”

Muza nodded. “It is indeed most impressive,” he said. “But I am originally from here, and no hint of it stood there when I was a lad. When were its foundations laid?”

The passer-by squinted off into the distance for a moment. “Let me see, now. The foundations? If memory serves, the digging commenced twenty-three years, six months, and seventeen days after Muza Dai Boo farted in the marketplace.”

It is impossible to have a dating system without an anchor — and for Mankind, the anchor is always a major historical event. The West takes its anchor from the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But when and why, pray tell, did the “Common Era” begin? Were some CE / BCE enthusiast to be asked that question, what would he say?

Hey, Bubba, it’s not my problem if you’re humor-deficient. So tell me: On what historical event, if “CE” means the same as “AD,” is “CE” based? Spit it out. Do the words stick in your throat, or are you merely bashful about your atheism?

Francis, he may have a point. Because when Muza Dai Boo farted, Oscumbag was “born”. The county recorder will not record a fart, so Oscambo has no birth certificate.

But this clown is blasphemous. By implication he equates farting with the birth of his Lord, Savior and Creator, Jesus Christ. He openly and viciously insults the One Who will decide his eternal destiny. Such is the spiritual equivalent of spitting on the Godfather. Lots of luck with that one, Adam Henry!

The writer of that joke does *not* equate the birth of our Lord with a fart. Instead, he established an anchor for an arbitrary fictional dating system.

The Muslims use, as their anchor, a major event in their religion. The Jews use their own major event–the creation of the world. In the Probability Broach, by L. Neil Smith, the “North American Confederacy” uses 1776 as their anchor. What other cultures around the world use (or used, if the cultures went extinct) I do not know.

The point of the joke is that the fart in question was so memorable, it made a useful anchor point for that little town.

Well, I would say – This is the number Christians use, and this is my alternative way of using it, while not denying my God.

(Do we worship the same God? I have no idea. It’s occasionally a practical question in Jewish law, and it was never quite resolved. I tend towards he opinion that we do. We do, however, have to give up our lives to avoid converting to Christianity, but not to Islam.)

I use BC and AD myself, because that way most people I talk to know what I’m talking about. (Incidentally, no one of any of the faiths you’ve mentioned have ever complained.)

But if we absolutely have to have a non-denominational, non-religious-based, non-offensive-to-any-group’s dating system, the answer was given to us by H. Beam Piper in his Terro-Human Future History stories half a century ago. All dates in that story cycle are given in “Atomic Era” dating. Year One of same beginning on 2 December, 1942, the day the first graphite-moderated atomic reactor went critical at Stagg Field, University of Chicago. (Incidentally, the fact that the reactor was basically a huge, almost cubical mass of graphite “bricks” is why we still call a nuclear reactor a “pile”.)

Under that system, this is the year 68 A.E., since we haven’t gotten to December 2 yet.

Of course, there is the small problem that using this system is sure to drive the “No Nuclear Power” fanatics completely round the bend. (IMHO, that is a feature, not a bug.)

68 AE it is!! But then it too was designed as an insult to Christianity–because naturally the Atomic Age is far more important that the birth of any Savior.

BCE/CE are used as an intentional insult, but like Piper’s dig, I’m not offended. Why should I care? I can understand either, and I will continue to use BC/AD as much as I like. If somebody else wants to get offended more power to them.

By the bye, Piper might be having another comeback. There are rumors of a Fuzzy movie, which will certainly bring about a resurgence of book sales even if the movie trashes them (which of course it probably will). What I’d really like to see is “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen” done into a movie properly, but not gonna hold my breath. I think somebody in Hollywood finally realized the potential for marketing cute little Fuzzy dolls.

Mr. Cramer – No offense intended, but as a Jew, I just prefer the BCE/CE method. Before I knew what it actually meant, I thought it was, Before Christian Era/Christian Era. For understandable reasons, I personally find it difficult to use AD. Of course, with the vast majority of college students being Christian, I’m not sure why textbook writers are so squeamish about using the BC/AD method.

BTW – 476 is the date of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. There was still a Roman Empire in the East.

Well, if we are going to be good little Jacobins — or should I say Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution? — how far should we go in destroying our heritage?

YOU reach for your smelling salts over AD/BC because it offends you as a Jew. You are oppressed! Fine. I assume you would also like to purge the word “domingo” (“the lord’s day”) from Spanish. Go for it! Destroy!

Perhaps you (and some of those nasty Bible-thumpers)can manage to be offended by our naming days of the week and months of the year after pagan gods. Away with that too!
The atheists, Buddhists, and anti-semites, with a little coaxing, can be offended by the seven day week. It makes them victims of Christofascist oppression! It’s non-inclusive, cultural hegemony! It’s a Zionist plot! Destroy!

I understand that there are people might have some preference for BCE/CE because of the implication of AD. That’s not a problem. If a student turns in a paper using BCE/CE, I don’t care. But for the vast majority of students, this is rather weird–practically a slap in the face.

The use of B.C.E. and C.E. has nothing whatever to do with political correctness. The terms, which are scholarly and not political, were introduced one hundred and thirty years ago. As one of the first writers to use the term political correctness in print (in a 1989 article in the New Criterion in which I squeezed the words between quotation marks, because they were of such recent vintage), I know from firsthand experience that the scholarly terms derive from an entirely different impulse.

Jewish scholars use the terms B.C.E. and C.E. almost universally. If you think about it for a minute, you’d understand that they could hardly do otherwise. To refer to a historical period as “before Christ”—that is, before the arrival of the messiah—connotes acceptance of the Christian theology of supersessionism, which holds that Jewish history was “fulfilled” with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and that the Church “superseded” the Jews in salvific history at that point.

Such a theology is not merely obnoxious to the Jews; it is beside the point. Moreover, both the Church of Rome and most evangelical Protestant churches have abandoned the theology for which B.C. and A.D. stand. For Jews, the messiah has yet to arrive. And thus it makes utterly no sense to speak of a time “before the messiah.”

As for A.D.—the “year of Our [sic] Lord.” For the Jews, those years started with year One.

My argument was plain. The use of the terms B.C.E. and C.E. is scholarly, not “politically correct.”

If you’d like, I’ll extend the argument a little. As Carl Sesar (comment #29) says, “If Jews prefer to use [the terms], what’s it to you?” I have never insisted, not even with undergraduate students, that B.C.E. and C.E. be used instead of B.C. and A.D. I do suggest, however, that they are theologically neutral terms, and perhaps some might prefer them on that account.

If Jews were really going to be “politically correct” about the issue, they’d demand that the Jewish system for numbering the years be adopted. But as IsraelP (comment #5) points out, Israelis don’t even use the traditional Jewish numbering system.

Jews use the Christian numbers without complaint—without lies shouts of offense—and substitute B.C.E. and C.E. for “Before the Messiah” and “Year of Our Lord.” Forgive me for saying so, since I am a Jew, but that seems pretty respectful and not particularly overbearing to me.

A change without a difference, is “scholarly?” Your duplicity is breathtaking. Using the Metric System over the English System in science is scholarly, the former being far less cumbersome. There are times when Political Correctness deserves to be defended. The only true merit of CE-BCE is it eases the offense to non-Christians. Defend the truth, it’s easier and more effective.

So much for observing Pajamas Media request to avoid ad hominem attacks. I am not sure how defending the use of scholarly terms is “duplicitous,” especially since I have long been a public opponent of political correctness. (See the attacks on me for daring to suggest, for example, that Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the most overrated novel of all time.)

The truth is that the terms B.C.E. and C.E. originated in the nineteenth century, antedating political correctness by nearly a century. The terms are scholarly because they are neutral. Textbooks tend to adopt the usage because they tend to adopt scholarly norms.

Again: the very system of numbering years is Christian, and yet those who use B.C.E. and C.E. are not offended by that system, because they are aware of belonging to—and happy to belong to—the Christian era.

Ah, so it’s specifically because you and your students are Jewish! I have no problem with that, as I would were you to claim that your preferred nomenclature is:
– more informative;
– dispels ambiguity;
– enriches understanding;
– combats prejudice.

For there are persons who make such claims, you know. Oh, by the way, the “Church of Rome,” by which I assume you mean the Catholic Church, hasn’t abandoned any of the theology upon which the B.C. and A.D. designations are based; that was a pure falsehood, which I shall assume, out of Christian charity, was unintentional on your part. Jesus of Nazareth is still acknowledged by us Catholics to be the Messiah, the Son of God and the Redeemer of Mankind. You might want to restrain your religious pronouncements to religions about which you actually know something.

I taught for twenty years at Texas A&M University. Believe me when I say that my students there were not Jewish. They were not supersessionist Christians either.

And it is supersessionism not messianism which is implicit in the use of B.C. and A.D. And it is supersessionism not messianism which has been repudiated by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

A year ago in January, Benedict visited the Rome Synagogue, and quoted John Paul’s prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem: “God of our Fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the nations: we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.”

Note well: the people of the Covenant. Not the people of the Old Covenant. Rather, the people of an eternal covenant with God. As John Paul wrote in his 1980 encyclical Dives in misericordia, “The Lord loves Israel with the love of a special choosing, much like the love of a spouse, and for this reason He pardons its sins and even its infidelities and betrayals.” For the Holy Father—as a Jew, I take special pleasure in calling him that—God’s covenant with Israel, His love for the Jews, exists always in the present, not yet entirely fulfilled.

If Jews were really going to be “politically correct” about the issue, they’d demand that the Jewish system for numbering the years be adopted.

What makes you think this change was to make Jews happy? I would be inclined to suspect that it was to make Muslims and various anti-Christian sorts happy (or at least the image of Muslims that some academics have imagined).

Without meaning to quibble, your comment – “…most evangelical Protestant churches have abandoned the theology for which B.C. and A.D. stand.” piqued my interest. Do you have enough time and energy left from those other quarrelsome attacks to clarify?

On a personal level, and to demonstrate the depths of my naive illiteracy, the assumption when I ran into BCE/CE usage was of a revolt against terms associated with dead languages. On that basis it made sense to substitute modern words. I was content with the terms because in my utter depravity I assumed the “C” stood for “Christian”. No offense intended.

I could have picked some other generally recognized as Jewish last name–and I would likely ended up with the same results. (I picked Bernstein because my eldest sister’s long-time boyfriend was named Bernstein because his great-grandfather, when entering Ellis Island, decided to drop his obviously Jewish Romanian name and use a very “American” name instead, so he picked it off the immigration inspector’s nameplate: Bernstein.) For example, Goldstein. Or Diamant.

I do not doubt that scholars working in the field of Jewish history normally stick with BCE/CE, and for understandable reasons–to avoid offending those Jews who find AD offensive in its implications. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when a general textbook goes PC.

It IS a culture war. It’s just another attempt by the multicultural police to not try to “offend” anyone, as if NOT using BC and AD would make, say, Islamists “love” us. It’s stupid and confusing, to say the least. To say the most it’s insulting and just another attempt for the cultural “elite” pinheads in our society to take another opportunity to apologize for something nobody should be apologizing for. Perhaps we should start following the Chinese calendar. After all, we wouldn’t want to alienate all those Asians out there. After all, it IS the Year of the Rabbit, the perfect symbol for all those multiculturalists out there.

Well, I don’t know why it’s in a textbook. I do know I read books that are CE/BCE. They are explained in the intro as Common Era, and Before the Common Era. Not even Christ is mentioned. I was surprised that the author claimed it was before christ/before the christian era.

For me, it’s a useful marker. I know where they author is coming from, and what the author’s assumptions are. I know the author is either jewish, or, more probably communist. It helps, when one is reading a religious and political history of mesopotamia ( for example ) to know that the author measures women’s status by their private material holdings, that they are sure kings and queens don’t quite speak to each other, that families don’t hold joint status and wealth, that the whole religion is described in the most arid and contemptible terms, yet avoids judgment about its justice, or lack thereof. While if I read an AD/BC book, there aren’t quite so many pretensions to scholarly=ness, the writer has a sense of how a loyal family works, there’s a note of the emotional effects of this or that religion. It’s a useful marking.

I’m not sure why a textbook would try to dress up and pretend to be among its intellectual betters, though. It can’t even get the terms right.

“Not even Christ is mentioned. I was surprised that the author claimed it was before christ/before the christian era.”

You never noticed the curious coincidence that “Common Era” exactly lines up with BC/AD? I can understand using traditional Jewish dating, or A.H. for Muslims. But pretending that CE is more “multicultural” even though it is exactly conformant with Dionysus Exiguus’ mistaken dating of Jesus’ birth is bizarre.

It is pure silliness on the part of fools with less than stellar agendas to try and change the traditional names or reference phrases that have been in use for decades, centuries or millennia.

When I was a wee child in 1945 then New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia decided to change the name of Sixth Avenue to Avenue of the Americas. I have never encountered a New Yorker since that silly day in 1945 who actually referred to Sixth Avenue as ‘Avenue of the Americas’ or address correspondence as such.

Recently another pandering politician renamed Triborough Bridge the RFK Bridge and spent millions changing signs and documents. I have yet to encounter anyone who actually refers to the Triborough Bridge (a bridge that uniquely connects three New York City boroughs) as the RFK Bridge.

There are even hardliners like myself that refer to the international airport in Brooklyn as Idlewild, named after the beautiful wetlands that it was built on rather than succumb to other pandering politicians of 62 years ago that renamed it JFK after a murdered but less than stellar President.

I doubt that BCE and CE will catch on, particularly in a Nation that is 78.5% Christian! Those acronyms will never appear in any of my books or other writings…simply because I cannot remember what they mean!

As Rodney would say, “Can’t we all just get along?” Using BCE/CE in the West seems a modest recognition of the fact that this is a Judeo-Christian civilization. The real multi-cultis would be insisting on acknowledging the Chinese, Islamic, Bhuddist, and other calendars simultaneously, which would be ridiculous. (Apropos, in Israel most major papers show both the Western and the Hebrew dates.) Mr. Cramer is picking a fight over a minor change in terminology, reminiscent to some of us of the shift from cycles to hertz when referring to radio frequencies in the 1960s. Most will adjust quickly enough.

The bigger issue is the all too common usage of “the Prophet Mohammed” even by Western writers. He might be Islam’s prophet but he’s not *my* prophet, and I don’t acknowledge him as one. None of us in the West should either.

“The bigger issue is the all too common usage of “the Prophet Mohammed” even by Western writers. He might be Islam’s prophet but he’s not *my* prophet, and I don’t acknowledge him as one. None of us in the West should either.”

Do you think textbooks are switching to BCE/CE to make Jews less offended? That’s not the group whose favor this change is trying to curry. It’s a rather larger group in America that doesn’t take insults well.

It seems that the usage of B.C. and A.D. clearly, quickly and honestly tells the basis / history of our dating system without extra explanation needed. Simplicity, clarity and honesty should not be chucked overboard for the fear of possible offense maybe. That historians and scholars seek to hide the history of the system is just silly no matter what excuses they make.

One quick thing to correct on main article: Jehovah’s Witnesses do not use the BCE and CE method to deny Christ as the Messiah. Rather, since the BC and AD are based on an incorrect assumption that Christ was born in the year 0, BCE and CE are simply more accurate.

As for the silly notion that no high school kid would know readily what BCE or CE stood for, keep in mind that at one point none of those kids knew what BC or AD meant: they were taught. Teaching them something new shouldn’t be too hard.

Maybe its that year between -1 and +1, the one that went by so fast? Or possibly a year left over from the Julian or Nisan calendars? Or maybe one of the missing years from the Jewish calendar? Lots of options. Best not to take any checks with that date.

It has always seemed to me that Progressives rename things as a way of identifying each other, and spotting those in need of reprogramming. People who have better things to do with their lives than learn the constant stream of PC new names for things are revealed as soon as they open their mouth.

Since I am retired and can’t be fired, given a bad grade, or sentenced to sensitivity class, I really don’t give a darn what the new term is. If I am talking about something that happened more than 2011 years ago, I will append BC to that date. If you can’t understand what I am talking about, tough. If you correct me, expect a mini-lecture on polite behavior.

A Jewish flag/general officer in one of the U.S. military services (unnamed here) was assigned as chief of personnel a few years ago. He implemented a policy, probably long planned in his mind, that no personnel certificates (retirements, etc.) in the entire service would henceforth use the abbreviation A.D. Already service members had the option to request and receive an alternate certificate that did not use that wording, but that was not enough for him. He had no intention of providing the A.D. option to anyone else. He seemed competent enough, but this was a real distraction that didn’t need to take place.

After a few months of brouhaha, the chief of the service, or possibly the chief of staff, overrode this flag/general officer and reinstated the former policy.

The solution is to use the culturally accepted B.C. and A.D., and to allow people to use their own alternative abbreviations in their own work. Have a student that doesn’t want to use B.C. or A.D.? Fine, we should say, have at it. But don’t go all culturally imperialistic on the rest of us; show some tolerance.

Incidentally, the Jewish flag/general officer’s staff put out, for at least a year as far as I could tell, wrong dates for all commission certificates in the “and in the ___ year of the Independence of the United States” section. Even with explanations, his staff couldn’t get it through their heads that the first year started on July 4, 1776, not in 1777. Perhaps paying more attention to existing details would have been more appropriate.

I have lived and worked in many cultures around the world for 42 years, and I speak/spoke seven languages. I am the most multi-cultural native American I’ve ever met or even heard of, in or out of academia.

With that authority I prounounce the BCE/BC, CE/AD disussion pure academic progressive bullshit. Someone needs to be fired for wasting two full pages of a college textbook. Those trees could have been more useful in an auto de fe of those pseudo intellects.

Jeez, Clayton, you need a hobby. People have been using these (heh) religiously in scholarship for years and years, especially we of the differently-religioned who think this is “the year of Our Lord 2011″ only by convention and historical accident. But of the 11,376,243 things about which to get outraged today, at best you’ve added number 11,376,241 in priority order.

Charlie – You’re right, it’s really not that important. But, this is America, and America is peopled mostly by Christians, and if Christians are more comfortable with BC/AD, they should by all means use that dating system. Moreover, as I pointed out early, with Christians making up the vast majority of college students, I don’t see why the BC/AD should not be used. This tempest in a teacup should not become a sticking point between Christians and Jews.

Of course, Jewish scholars should use a system they are equally comfortable with. As an example, I read a bi-monthly magazine called Biblical Archaelogical Review. As far as I can tell, the magazine has both a Jewish and a Christian audience. It has many Jewish contributors, but it also has Christian contributors. The magazine, though, uses the BCE/CE system of dating. The publisher is Jewish and I think he is more comfortable (as I would be) with the BCE/CE system. Every issue, though, has a little box indicating that BCE/CE is equivalent BC/AD. The whole thing is no big deal and everybody seems to be fine with it.

The whole thing is no big deal and everybody seems to be fine with it.

Well, from both the article and the comments, I’d say maybe not. But I agree it isn’t a big deal. Clayton, if you don’t like the way these authors wrote their book, write your own damn book. No one has a gun to your head.

Actually, that’s not really true here in the US. American archaeologists (I’m a practicing one) doing work in the New World still overwhelming use BC/AD. Look at any recent copy of American Antiquity or one of the regional journals like California Archaeology or Plains Anthropologist and you will see this is true. BCE/CE are mostly used by scholars dealing with Old World stuff.

Increasingly archaeologists side-step the whole thing – not that it’s a big deal to them – by showing dates in years before present (BP or YBP). That habit mostly comes from the use of radiocarbon dating and the issues with calibrating those dates. Often dates are portrayed as RCYB (uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present).

Interesting – I received a radiocarbon assay today from a sample I sent in from a prehistoric site I excavated in Northeastern Colorado. The date was given in years BP and the +/_ range was given in BC/AD dates

Given the response to this article, I would say this IS a ‘big deal’. I have noticed this CE/BCE in a number of places, and have always thought of its use as pretentious nonsense. It is also another way to erase our Christian background from scholarly discourse. I resent that. And I resent any implication that “CE/BCE” is somehow intellectually superior to the use of “BC/AD”.

heathermc – You say: “I have noticed this CE/BCE in a number of places, and have always thought of its use as pretentious nonsense.” Please, it’s not pretentious nonsense. It is just that some people (myself included) are uncomfortable using AD because of what it means. By the same token, I have said that in America, things addressed primarily to Christian audiences should take into account Christian sensibilities and use the BC/AD method. Also, the use of the BCE/CE system in some small publications (such as BAR as well as Jewish oriented publications) is not an attempt ” … to erase [y]our Christian background from scholarly discourse.” As Compesino has indicated, the BC/AD method is alive in well in American archaeological publications. So, please do not think that there is ” … any implication that “CE/BCE” is somehow intellectually superior to the use of “BC/AD”.” It is not.

To paraphrase another commenter, BCE/CE marginalizing Jesus Christ in our culture is about 3,403,304 down the list of ways in which this culture has lost the plot of Christian civilization. Dr. Gosnell’s little shop of horrors in Philly is way up the list from this stupidity.

Our Marxist friends (I don’t want to appear “unhinged” or “nasty” by referring to them as enemies) spend quite a bit of time doing something called “framing”, or “frame analysis”. It starts with the premise that existing culture serves as an impediment to the implementation of pure communism. As such, culture is a “problem” in search of a Marxist solution.

First, accept that culture is a problem (we must “fundamentally transform America!”). Diagnose the “problem” by identifying the specific cultural memes and habits which perpetuate the culture. Then attack. Our Marxist friends understand how important it is to wage war on our cultural or habitual use of language. They carefully consider what they deem “biases” in the smallest snips of verbiage and then mercilessly rape, er, edit the offending word(s) (wymyn) or develop new terminology (BCE/CE) to comply with their PC orthodoxy. This is the cannon which heaps contumely upon ANYTHING that hints benignly (in our commie friends’ minds) at Western civilization, so-called paternalism, capitalism, or so-called white privilege, and lowers it beneath the lowest annelid or worm, figuratively speaking.

We must recognize that, as contemptible as our Marxist friends’ methods are, their methods are also horribly and malignantly effective. With such weapons, er tools, they have nearly completed their march through the academic institutions. There is a reason why we are increasingly alienated from each other, and no longer can recognize many of the mores and messages emanating from our fellow citizens. The glue that culturally bound us, our language has been systematically dissolved and debased by the deliberate application of Marxist “frame analysis”.

As an example, I’ve had several bosses (while working at the same place). Each and every one, as soon as they’d warmed the seat of their chair, would decree a redesign of our stationery. It made them feel they had done something decisive, and made a difference.

Academia and politicians are the same. They HAVE to change something, or they feel they will leave this world unremembered. Thus AD to CE. Thus transliterations of non-alphabetic languages. How many ways have you seen Chairman Mao Tse-tung spelled? How many ways Gaddaffi? But by changing the spelling or the acronym, they have in their little way changed the world.

Some of it is infuriating; much of it is harmless today. But pity the poor scholars two hundred years from now when they try to tie all the differently-spelled names to one historical person!

When using the designation AD, it is correct to place it before the year, not after(e.g. AD 57)because if you were saying it out loud in full, you would say “in the year of the Lord five seventy-six,” not “five seventy-six in the year of the Lord.”

If the BCE/ CE thing is a scholarly usage, let it flourish among the scholars.

If it is a usage favored by Jews, let them use it.

However, there is no good reason, other than political correctness, for our students to be taught that it’s ‘high time’ to replace the culturally imperialistic (moral equivalent of a hate crime!) BC / AD terminology with something ‘fairer’ to all.

The kicker, of course, is that the C element (“common”) in BCE and CE is still, you guessed it, Jesus of Nazareth!!

Trying to mess with established usages for no good reason (as I say, let the scholars and the Jews have their own ways of referring to dates, as they see fit) smacks of those idiots (not to give them their due) in the French Revolution with their months called Thermidore and whatever else it was!

By the way, how much does it hurt people today that we STILL are calling months after pagan gods–March for Mars, June for Juno–and days of the week, too, for that matter (Thor and Jupiter for Thursday / Giovedi, etc.)?

How do people who don’t venerate Mars and Jupiter handle the stress of daily life under such conditions?!?

(By the way, I’m Jewish myself, and use BC and AD constantly with my elementary and high school students. I also make sure they know what AD means–I’m a Latin teacher, after all–and too many of them think it stands for “After Death”!! Not that that bears analysis … that would mean there were some 36 years between Christ’s birth and his death unaccounted for!)

As a kid, when I first found out what they meant, I didn’t think it was fair that I had to use B.C. and A.D., but it was not all that big a deal to me back then, so I let it ride. Only years later — still pretty much a kid, though — did I come across B.C.E. and C.E. used by Jewish scholars. Hey, this is good, I thought, and that was that.

Mr. Cramer, and all you other cranks who carp about this usage, back off. If Jews prefer to use it, what’s it to you? Mind your own business, and screw your “cultural war.”

I don’t mind if anyone uses it. But the purpose of a textbook is to communicate, is it not? If this textbook were aimed at a largely Jewish audience, it would make sense. But in North America? Considering the religious affiliations of North Americans, dating everything AH (relative to the hegira) would make more sense than BCE/CE.

Thank you, Mr. Cramer, for reiterating the point–use the BCE / CE designation if it makes you feel better (no matter how comical it may seem to me, when I consider what makes the C stand for “common”), but don’t insist that everyone adopt it. Talk about “crank”!

Please also don’t discount how the instruction in adopting the newer designation is delivered, at least to the younger kids, with yet more of the leftist indoctrinator’s condescension towards those who are so “boorish” as to inflict their cultural traditions on others …

Why are we still using month-names that were in use among the Romans, instead of those that the Jews use(d), or the Chinese, the Japanese, the Moslems, anybody else? Is it just a fact of cultural history, perhaps? Need we all be thin-skinned enough (we who are no longer ancient Romans, that is) to feel victimized by it?

Oh, but you do mind, a whole lot in fact, carping about all those “prickly Jews, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or others upset that you are ‘privileging’ Christianity by saying AD . . .” etc., you’re just as upset as those “prickly” others yourself, at a conscious decision of textbooks to change over to CE, because that will “offend the still-large majority of Americans who [like yourself] culturally or religiously identify themselves as Christians.” And, to top it all off, you’re upset because using BCE and CE “is a form of distraction” from effective teaching and learning. You’re free to feel and think so, of course, but that is a whole lot of minding, is it not?

Exactly so. I believe the correct term is projection. “B.C.E.” and “C.E.” emerged long before grievance politics or public displays of being offended. Some are insulted by dropping “B.C.” and “A.D.,” though, and so they naturally assume that anyone who substitutes the terms B.C.E. and C.E. must feel similarly aggrieved. No other explanation is possible!

Nine-tenths of the nonsense in the world could be eliminated if we abandoned the confidence that we could fathom other peoples’s motives.

I grew up in the 50s & 60s a neighborhood where half the residents were Jews. I never once heard the use of anything other than BC/AD. If it didn’t seem to bother them back then; why now?

The first time I encountered BCE was in a Scientific American article in the 80s. I was able to deduce what it meant, though I thought at first it stood for Before Christian Era. It seemed stupidly PC to me then; my opinion has not changed.

I’m an Atheist. It doesn’t bother me, nor does the naming of the days of the week after Pagan gods.

What has happened to this land? No one used to get insulted this easily. It used to take actual insults to insult people. Now we have renamed garbagemen recycling technicians so we don’t insult women.

I grew up in the 50s & 60s a neighborhood where half the residents were Jews. I never once heard the use of anything other than BC/AD. If it didn’t seem to bother them back then; why now?

The first time I encountered BCE was in a Scientific American article in the 80s. I was able to deduce what it meant, though I thought at first it stood for Before Christian Era. It seemed stupidly PC to me then; my opinion has not changed.

I’m an Atheist. It doesn’t bother me, nor does the naming of the days of the week after Pagan gods.

What has happened to this land? No one used to get insulted this easily. It used to take actual insults to insult people. Now we have renamed garbagemen recycling technicians so we don’t insult women.

Make no mistake, the replacement of BC and AD is deliberate and is a war.

But it isn’t really a war on our culture. It’s more than that. It’s a war on our freedom.

Sure it’s a small thing, but an indicative thing. BC and AD are indicators of the Judeo-Christian tradition; you know, the tradition that has enabled peace and tranquility for centuries (and would do so even moreso were it not for Statist maniacs like Hitler, Stalin and every other marxist who has ever walked the face of the earth).

And a marker of the Judeo-Christian tradition is like a red flag in front of a bull, as far ss our Cuddly statistmarxists are concerned. Because that tradition is the foundation of freedom and personal wealth….not for the Cuddly statistmarxists, but for billions of people who think and act like they are free and independent people who are just as good as the poeple who want to control them.

That’s the red flag in front of the bull. Freedom. Because YOUR freedom restricts their POWER.

In order to avoid offending any particular religious group, or perhaps even better to offend tham all, I propose a new system of dating. We will use BN and AN for Before Neuman and Anno Neumanni, based on the birth date of Alfred E. Neuman on November 1, 1955.

This is a silly and quite uninformed posting over nothing. Scholars in the various fields of Asian studies have been using BCE and CE for many, many years. It is, in fact, a way of acknowledging BOTH Western and Eastern traditions. People in the West can say “Before the Christian Era,” and the “Christian Era” for the abbreviations; non-Christian people in the East say “Before the Current Era” or “Before the Common Era” and the “Current Era” or the “Common Era” for the two abbreviations.

These abbreviations are a way to acknowledge the existence of BOTH Christian ways of denoting years and non-Christian ways. The focus on Jews is beside the point. The system has been used by scholars of Sanskrit (India and SE Asia) and North Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Let people use a system they can all agree on. From now on, everyone must mark time by the Universal Epoch, using the number of seconds coming before or elapsed since exactly midnight on the first day of January 1970 AD/CE. Just don’t forget it to make it 64-bits so you can refer to years before 1901 AD/CE and those after 2038 AD/CE.

Yes, everyone can agree on that. Including Windows users. You will agree. It’s for your own good, after all. The science is settled, the facts are straight; and the best thing of all: the feeling is great!

BC and AD are used in Western civilization. Christianity is the foundation of Western civilization and a good way to undermine a civilization is to undermine its foundation.

If the purpose is not to offend then why offend the majority to please a few. If the purpose is to change our culture and religious heritage then BCE and CE is a step in the right direction. And it should be opposed.

I’m struck by two posts above, both by of which take considerable umbrage at the topic of BC/AD vs BCE/CE… both use surprisingly strong language to express their feelings about the subject.

A certain D. G. Myers, of the Melton Center for Jewish Studies, at the Ohio State University, says this of the Christian theology which embraces the notion of Jesus as messiah:

“Such a theology is not merely obnoxious to the Jews; it is beside the point. Moreover, both the Church of Rome and most evangelical Protestant churches have abandoned the theology for which B.C. and A.D. stand. For Jews, the messiah has yet to arrive. And thus it makes utterly no sense to speak of a time “before the messiah.” ”

Thanks for being so honest. We get that this so-called scholar finds Christian theology “not merely obnoxious”, but this so-called scholar then goes on to assert that the Catholic and Protestant churches “have abandoned the theology for which B.C. and A.D. stand.” Really??? Unless I’m reading him wrongly, unless he misspoke wildly, D.G. Meyers has just asserted that the Catholic and Protestant churches no longer believe in their own theology which maintains that Jesus as the Christian Messiah — this is a shocking asserting coming from a supposed scholar at the Melton Center for Jewish Studies… or maybe, given his contempt for Christians and Christianity, it’s really not that shocking. If he finds the theology of the Christians “obnoxious” — then I truly question whether he is a Jewish bigot of the first order or not. I also question his scholarship.

Another poster, Carl Sesar, says to the author and dozens of sincere posters above: “Mr. Cramer, and all you other cranks who carp about this usage, back off. If Jews prefer to use it, what’s it to you? Mind your own business, and screw your “cultural war.” ”

Nowhere did I say that any Christian church had abandoned a “theology which maintains that Jesus as the Christian Messiah.” What I said, very clearly, is that much of Christianity has abandoned the theology of supersessionism, which holds that the Jews’ role in sacred history had been “fulfilled” by the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and that God’s new covenant Church had thus “superseded” the covenant with Israel.

John Paul II said publicly on several occasions that God had not revoked His covenant with Israel. And this view is central to the Protestant theology known as “dispensationalism.”

But if a Jew is a bigot for finding the theology of supersessionism obnoxious and irrelevant then I guess I am a bigot. (But so too are many good Christians.) More to the point, it is simply impossible to extrapolate from my distaste for supersessionism a contempt for Christians and Christianity. And in fact, my writings abundantly refute such a nasty and ill-informed accusation.

This is a forced note, given your insistence on confronting many here who view the CE/BCE notation for what it really is, rather than what you and others would like to tell us it is meant to be; Christians view this new designations as an attempt to further assault the Christian writings and Christianity, and further as an attempt by people like you for Christians to be forced to adopt your designation.

The designation, no matter when it first occurred (there seems to be some dispute on that), was initiated by Jews (no dispute on this) and was followed for a good time period (about half a century or so) exclusively by Jews. When Jews took over mainstream scientific Journals, they started to enforce this designation on many authors. I can atest to that: when in 1976 I submitted a paper for publication in a social science Journal the Editor-in-Chief of that Journal, a Jew, made it clear that I should use these designations if my paper were to be accepted for publication.

Here is my key point however, which I offer as an advice – not a warning: if Jews are to constantly antagonize Christians, then the reaction they will receive might not be very different than that the muslims and islamists are receiving here and now.

JJ – Do you know how this sounds? “if Jews are to constantly antagonize Christians, then the reaction they will receive might not be very different than that the muslims and islamists are receiving here and now.” Did you ever hear of “Der Sturmer” or the Holocaust. That’s what that sentence sounds like.

I note that Jews are not blowing up peopel, going around shooting up people or flying airplanes into buildings or having whacko moments in Frankfurt Airport shooting Americans or going nuts at an army airforce base. And we are not trying to impose Talmudic law on the West, unlike others groups who are only too tickled to have Sharia law imposed on the West and the world. Mr. Cramer has raised a minor issue which is now being blown way out of proportion by you and others (e.g., Wolfie). Both Prof. Meyers and I have acknowledged that in a Christian country there is no reason not to use BC/AD. It is just that some of us non-Christians are uncomfortable with AD. There is no attempt at all to conduct a cultural war. Aim your ire at members of the religion of pieces who hate the West, not a small group of people who revel in being part of the West.

As a former member of the US academic world I have witnessed first hand the manner in which certain Universities, Schools and Departments tend to be dominated by Jews in many ways, for example in hiring practices, by offerring preferential treatment to other Jews; in academic discourse (involving publications, funding and awards – a good example: the Nobel Prizes in Economics) by accepting inferior theories, hypotheses, suggestions supplied by Jews while rejecting superior ones supplied by non-Jews; by applying quotas and preferential treatment to various “minorities” when clearly other applicants were far more qualified and then treating them as their caddies, etc; it would take too much space and time to fully expand onto how Jewish attitudes in academia manifest themselves.

My suggestion was a friendly one: keep a low profile and don’t antagonize Christians. The reaction might not exactly be as strong as the reaction to islam, obviously the two aren’t comparable, but I just want you to know that there’s resentment out there because of the manner Jews conduct themselves. The only reason that resentment is contained is because of “political correctness” and fear of the punishment by Jews if anyone would openly speak up and object – I know I didn’t object and bitten my lips for 35 years I had been witnessing it but not any more. Now you have the option to continue doing what you do, but get ready to face the consequences, since all actions do have consequences.

Thanks for your clarification — I definitely misread the emphasis in your post on supersessionism vs Christian theology. Of course it’s impossible to quibble with you over what these terms connote to you, and if BC/AD “connotes acceptance of the Christian theology of supersessionism”, who am I to disagree. But when you say “both the Church of Rome and most evangelical Protestant churches have abandoned the theology for which B.C. and A.D. stand”, isn’t it you rather than they who insist that those terms “stand” on the theology of supersessionism? After all, by your own admission, Christians have apparently abandoned that basis for the terms B.C. and A.D. I’m no theological expert, but I also suspect that supersessionism is NOT the theology on which those terms “stand”. Most simply, they obviously represent the marking point of the birth of Christianity’s seminal figure. So what those terms (B.C. and A.D.) connote to you is also beside the point. It’s fair to say that your “connotes” is a personal impression and emotional generalization on your part.

But I’m still a little confused. You say most Christians have apparently rejected the theology of supersessionism. So why do the terms B.C. and A.D. continue to “connote” to you something which those Christians no longer believe themselves? Isn’t that the very essence of “grievance politics” which you say you eschew strongly? Just sayin’.

Mr Myers is probably not aware of the political-cum-ideological dimension of the issue. Substituting the vernacular equivalent of BCE/CE for the traditional BC/AD was a widespread communist ploy in the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Christians there were persecuted both covertly and overtly, and the totalitarian, publicly atheistic regimes used any means available to suppress and destroy faith in God. Education presents an excellent device for channeling propaganda and instilling the desirable world-view. This is exactly how Bolsheviks did it.

I assume Mr Myers is a man of faith, which is why this particular textbook affair ought to give him a great pause. I think he would be wise to contemplate all the connotations, whatever his personal attitude to Christianity may be. This obvious attack on religion is just one of many, and its purpose is clear: to poison the American mind even more, and spread atheism far and wide.

It would be unfortunate if Mr Myers styled himself into just another useful idiot, aiding and abetting nefarious designs of others.

The reason people get “prickly” on one side is because people get “aggressive” on the other.
When using BC/AD is put forward as “proof” that the world or government is inherently “Christian”, nobody should be surprised that people of various backgrounds will respond by using BCE/CE, and insist that is “proof” that the current year is only the most “common” one used for reference.

Of course if it is an issue of American textbooks for use by American students, we could just use BI/YI, revising all dates as appropriate, and the heck with the rest of the world.

But not a communications-neutral way of expressing dates. If you want something religiously neutral, use A.U.C., or dating from the traditional first Olympiad, or heck, the Battle of Halys (the first precisely dated event in history, because the battle was interrupted by a total solar eclipse). Using BCE/CE isn’t religiously neutral, because it just dresses BC/AD in a different costume, without changing the numbers.

It’s another incremental step by the Left in their decades long struggle to impose a pagan ideology on the rest of humanity. In their America, their world, it’s “freedom from religion” and you better keep your beliefs or disbeliefs under wraps unless you’re a Muslim. They don’t need no stinkin reference to Christ or any deity. “Common Era” and “Before Common Era” has a much more intellectual, enlightened, sophisticated, anti-establishment ring to it, don’t ya think? Yeah; it’s gotta be superior and fits the modern trend until Islamists decapitate all of them and change the time reference to BM and AM. No, not Bowel Movement and before noon; Before Mohammad and After Mohammad. You don’t want to get these guys mad at you; they react with a vengeance. But Christians, Jews, Polytheists, Agnostics, Atheists……..a bunch of pussycats.

You are right–but I was able to write this article in about 25 minutes, received a nice check for it, which will assist me in building up my canned food/ammunition/toilet paper stockpile for when the society goes down the toilet, as it seems to be doing.

Well, if we want to be good little Jacobins — or should I say Red Guards? — I think the calendar is an excellent target.

As Suzanne noted above (#28), we can spit on all kinds of graves! Let us begin with the most wicked artifacts, such as BC/AD and the use in the Romance languages of “the lord’s day” for Sunday or “sabbath” for Saturday. Forget the BCE/CE stuff, which only perpetuates Christofascist oppression. Let’s find a new, improved dating point, like the detonation of the first atomic bomb or the passage of the Social Security act.

Then we should abolish the 7-day week, lest some Bible-thumper point to it as evidence that Jerusalem had a profound impact on Western civilization. Personkind forbid that we should think so!

The pagan names for days and months have got to go as well. The Anglo-Saxon gods are all Nazis, or at least northern Europeans, which is pretty much the same thing. As for the Ancients, do you really want your kids reading Aristotle or Cicero? Tocqueville thought that the preservation of classical learning was very important in a democracy, but what did he know? This is a brave new world, and besides, those dead-white-males owned slaves.

HEY HEY HO HO WESTERN CIV HAS GOT TO GO!
If you see stained glass, smash it.

There is, of course, a way to eliminate the need for BC/AD or BCE/CE altogether. Simply imitate what physicists did in creating the Kelvin temperature scale. Before Lord Kelvin invented it, scientists recorded temperatures of things in Fahrenheit or Celsius degrees and used positive or negative signs to indicate if the temperature was above or below an arbitrary zero. We use BC/AD (or BCE/CE) in the very same way to indicate whether something was before or after an arbitrary date, in this case the birth of Jesus. If we imitated the Kelvin scale with our calendars, all dates would be positive and there would be no need to use BC/AD (or BCE/CE) at all.

The lowest temperature possible in the Kelvin scale is Absolute Zero, which is the temperature below which nothing can go. Using the same sort of approach for time, we have to find the moment before which nothing existed. Secular folks would call this the moment of the Big Bang; religious folks would talk about the moment of Creation. Assuming we took the secular view promoted by our scientists that the Big Bang took place roughly 13.7 billion years ago, that means that we’d express 2011 as the Year 13,700,000,000. Expressing our years relative to the Big Bang would obviously be a little messier than expressing them in terms of AD/BC!

Of course some religious traditions would have a great deal of trouble with accepting that the earth is 13.7 billion years old. Aren’t there still some strict creationists who believe that the earth was created on a Thursday in the year 4004 BC? But if those people were either persuaded to go along – or, more likely, just had their objections ignored – we would have solved the issue of how to designate years WITHOUT any reference to anyone’s religious traditions.

At least until scientists decided to move the Big Bang backward or forward in time a few million years.

I’ll bypass your nonsensical suggestion to start having dates based on the Big Bang, and I would like to counter the other ridiculous notion that you seem to espouse: all “creationists” – and by that one presumes you mean all Christians – believe that the World was created about 6,000 years ago.

Well, get off it; first, even the Pope quite recently referred to the Big Bang (as God’s creation), thus the Catholic Church doesn’t believe what you claim (in fact, the Vatican has given into accepting the stupid teachings of darwinism on “evolution” sometime ago).

But the point I wish to make to you is this: modern day Theism accepts the notion of God, along with all scientific evidence available but stripped from its unnecessary atheistic interpretations, like for example: the Universe has no purpose, Life appeared from non-living matter, humans are animals without free will, and other such nonsense.

First of all, I am not seriously proposing that we actually start dating everything from the Big Bang. I simply wanted to point out that if we measured time starting from the Big Bang, we would no longer have to have something like BC/AD or BCE/CE to indicate which dates were before or after an arbitrarily chosen date. If the starting date of your calendar is the beginning of time rather than some other arbitrarily chosen date, you never need something like BC/AD. The Big Bang (or Creation if you choose to call it that) is generally accepted by most religious and non-religious people as the exact point where time itself began. What could be more perfect as the basis of a calendar? Having said that, I don’t really imagine that this idea would be adopted simply because the numbers are far more unweildy than we’re used to; it’s just so much more convenient to refer to your car, for example, as an ’09 model (implying 2009) than to call it a 13,700,000,09 model! For convenience alone, I very much doubt we’d ever keep time on that basis even if it makes a certain logical sense to base our calendars on the Big Bang rather than the birth of Christ. By the same token, scientists and engineers are pretty much the only people that use the Kelvin temperature scale; I’ve never seen a weather report specify Kelvin, just Fahrenheit or Celsius.

Second, I defy you to find anything in my remarks that claimed that all Christians believe that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. In fact, this is what I said, exactly: Aren’t there still some strict creationists who believe that the earth was created on a Thursday in the year 4004 BC? I did not say that all Christians believe that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. I asked if some Christians still believe that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. I truly don’t know if that view still has any believers; I know that some people did believe it at some point in time. I know that a great many Christians do accept that the Big Bang/Creation took place billions of years ago, not merely a few thousand years ago.

I think this vehement little debate, as with many others, is incorrectly defined. I cannot see this argument in terms of “Scholars vs. Christians”, because I cannot reason a scholarly motive for obfuscating historical information.

If BCE/CE were born of scholarship, wouldn’t it denote some bit of important information? There is a wealth of history surrounding the genesis of the modern calendar that is lost when you discard BC/AD. How could anyone interested in the pursuit and retention of knowledge possibly claim that an empty, generic, manufactured term is preferable to an historically rich, widely accepted one?

I do not see “common era” notation as an insidious attack against Christianity, but certainly, neither is it scholarship. A quick poke around Wikipedia will remind us that “Anno Domini” was coined by a sixth century scholar; a little Scythian monk named Dennis. Is it relevant or important that he preferred to base the reckoning of years on someone slightly more influential that the last Roman Consul? It should be, if you are an historian.

Does BCE/CE change my life or destroy my faith? No. But I would think that the people most interested in preserving the details of history would eschew the practice of replacing honest knowledge in favor of social squeamishness. If you wish to use another calendar, fine, but use it because it has meaning and relevance. Perhaps you would be happier with the Hebrew calendar, or the Chinese? Hey, if you hurry, you have a year and a half or so left to use the Mayan – knock yourself out.

Heck, I thought these were an implicit acknowledgment of the dating system used by the vast majority of people in the Western world. If we wrote everything, “Tiberius came to power in the Year of Our Lord 27,” yes, that would be pretty heavy theology.

If someone decides to use BCE/CE because they are uncomfortable with AD, that does not bother me, because I know about these alternative terms. It is a bit silly in a textbook that is going to be used by students who know BC/AD, and will be utterly gobsmacked by BCE/CE.

“If someone decides to use BCE/CE because they are uncomfortable with AD, that does not bother me, because I know about these alternative terms. It is a bit silly in a textbook that is going to be used by students who know BC/AD, and will be utterly gobsmacked by BCE/CE.”

I tend to agree. I would not use AD/BC myself but certainly have no objection to anyone else doing so. And I agree that BCE/CE are going to be less familiar to most non-Jewish students.

But look at what has been unleashed by this discussion, Mr. Cramer. More than one commenter has taken offense at the very fact that Jews do not worship the man whose birth you are commemorating with BC/AD and that Jews do not accept his as our savior. At least one of these has followed this up ith veiled threats of what may happen to Jews if we don’t either accept that man as our savior or at least shup up about the fact that we don’t. He then adds that we will have brought it upon ourselves because of all the highly visible Jewish leftists and academics who are ruining the country.

Do you not find those sentiments at least as offensive as a college textbook’s use of BCE/CE?

I have news for you. Your statement “When I was growing up, about the only place you saw BCE or CE was in writings aimed at a Jewish or Jehovah’s Witness audience. In both cases, the goal was to avoid any statement that might imply that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah (Christos, the anointed one, in Greek).” is in error. Jehovah’s Witnesses full name Is Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses, and they do indeed believe is the Christ. Their use of BCE.( before common era) and CE ( common era) are related to keeping up with the times and modern terminology.

The Wikipedia article (what it is worth) indicates that Jehovah’s Witnesses has been using C.E. since at 1east 1964–so they are hardly keeping up with the times. There also seems to be some difference of opinion as to whether JWs regard Jesus as the Son of God or a part of God. If you can point me to some authoritative statement that JWs subscribe to the Nicene Creed, that would be useful. But if not, it would explain their use of C.E.

For Americans the Law of the Land uses the term “in the Year of our Lord”. One can not change that fact and therefore both the push to replace BC, AD and other common Christian references is an attempt to deny the religious underpinning of our founding. And similarly, the current attempt at perverting the words of the First Amendment is an effort to eliminate all religion from the public square, which is completely counter to what our founders practiced.

However the time is rapidly approaching that we will be forced to further define the term “religion” in the First Amendment. It states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Is it then illegal for the Federal Government to keep a certain set of religious people from free exercise of their religion even though that religion authorizes killing of other Americans, as has already happened?

1. I think this will leave the student asking the question “What is the difference between BCE and CE?” of course the teacher would have to give a satisfactory answer and apart from the birth of Christ there is none.

2. CE (common era) What do people, culture and the world have in common today with 2000 years ago?

3. If today is common with 2000 years ago where does evolution fit in?

This just opens up a whole can of worms, if academia believes they can hide a reference to the birth of Christ from their text books they had better be prepared to give an answer.

“2. CE (common era) What do people, culture and the world have in common today with 2000 years ago?

3. If today is common with 2000 years ago where does evolution fit in?

This just opens up a whole can of worms, if academia believes they can hide a reference to the birth of Christ from their text books they had better be prepared to give an answer.”

The answer is very simple. No one is hiding anything, and “common” is used in the sense of the “commonly used number for that year.” And since someone might then ask why this year is commonly called 2011, you are able to bring up the birth that you think people are trying to hide.

Maybe a bit off point, but what’s up with those old Flintstone Christmas Specials? Why were Fred and Wilma shown putting up a Christmas tree. I get the anachronism of them having pet dinosaurs, but really!

As I recall the story, the head of the U.S. Army military academy at West Point was once asked why the cadets parading by partially closed the fingers on their hands rather than fully extending them. The answer—”If I can get my cadets to conform their behavior down to the tiny detail of not extending their fingers fully when marching—I can get them to do anything.”

As for attempted imposition of BCE and CE rather than BC and AD— I would guess—we are witnessing a tiny, deliberate detail in a culture war to get the new secular cadets of our universities to believe anything.

Anthropology student whinge here: I see both sets of terms frequently and they’ve never thrown me. At least BC/AD and BCE/CE refer to the same point in time. But whoever thought up “BP” (before ‘present’, i.e. before the year 1950) ought to be taken out and shot. Every time I encounter x number of years BP in a textbook, I have to count backward from 1950. And why should 1950 be forever enshrined as “present” anyway?

JJ – (Can’t seem to link to your comment.) It was not Nazi trash talk, because what you are saying is positively hateful and threatening. In particular, when you say “… keep a low profile and don’t antagonize Christians.” This is not Europe with its perpetual Jewish phobia(i.e., antisemitism). Most of the Christians of America have a far different attitude than you do towards Jews. But, I am an American first and foremost, and I damned well am going to speak up about what I think is true and right, and I will not be threatened by you or anyone when I do speak up. Do you know what has happened to Germany? It is almost Judenrein at this point, and it is almost Noble-prize-rein in science. You know where it’s all gone? To America where the Jews have gone.

As for quotas, tell me about it. The only quota right now is affirmative action which is anti-white, anti-Asian and anti-Jewish. I’ll tell you about quotas. Columbia University had one in the sixties, disguised as a diversity quota against New Yorkers (i.e., Jews). I got into MIT but not Columbia. Go figure. Let me tell about quotas in Europe. There was one in Poland. It was called affirmative action for Christians with the sole aim of keeping Jewish attendance at universities at around 2 or 3 percent. Note, the prewar WWII Jewish population of Poland was 10 percent of the population. Of course, today Jews in Poland no longer have to worry about quotas because there are virtually no Jews there. Do you think Poland is better off?

JJ consider your statements and how out of place they are in America, and here on PJM in particular.

Mr. Crowley, you have unleashed a horrid amount of venom by some on a trivial point. You should be truly ashamed of yourself.

I’ve had just about enough from you with your nazi trash talk and now accusations of anti-semitism and intimidation. These characterizations are just as valid as those coming from the far left accusing critics of BHO as “racists” “violent Tea Party members” etc.

You know what? Racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia and the like are words which have lost all their meaning simply because (i) they have been overused and (ii) because they reveal far more about those spewing them than the person thrown at.

I’m trying hard to keep this debate as civilized as possible, and as friendly as possible. I offer you specific examples of the kinds of attitudes by some Jews which have produced considerable resentment within the academia, by academics. You may disregard all that, you’re free to do so. This however won’t make the reaction disappear, or diminish it.

And there is more. Some of your fellow Jews have radicalized academia, to the extent that academic training for students there has been reduced to indoctrination with a strong anti-Western, anti-American bias. Jews have played a major role in pushing liberalism, progressivism, ommunism, marxism, radicalism and now islamophilia in US academia and within the American society in general, including the media (does Saul Alinksy and George Soros ring any bells?)

Atheism and anti-Christian attitudes (including but not limited to homosexuality, extreme applications involving separation of Church and State, affirmative action policies etc) have been sponsored to a disproportional extent by Jews, given their relative demographic numbers. These are facts which many among us, Americans, know quite well and hold opinions about. Political correctness might be supressing them, but to all there’re limits.

JJ – I was just repeating back to you your own words. Apparently, you do not realize just how hateful and threatening they are.

If there is anti-Christian feelings in the Jewish community, you have to realize that most Jews are only one or two generations removed from being European immigrants, and what and you have to take into account is the lachrymose history of Jews in Europe under Christian domination. (1000 years of being beat upon, culminating in the Holocaust, will do that.) I always make a point of telling my co-religionsts that Christians in America are different, mainly because they are Americans, not Europeans. As far as I can tell, that has been the case almost since America was settled. (It is as if all the good Christians left Europe for America.)

The problem in Europe was that Europeans judged Jews as a group, and that seems to be your problem as well. So the Europeans blamed all the Jews for the foibles of a few, and in those few, they saw in them what they wanted to see. So, the anti-Communists in Europe blamed the Jews for Communism and the Communists blamed the Jews for being counter-revolutionairies. You seem to be doing the same thing: blaming us all for the foibles of a few. (And BTW You omit such stellar conservatives as William Kristol, Norman Pohoretz, John Podohoretz, the late Milton Friedman, etc.)

But America is not (or should not be) multi-cultural. In America we (should) judge each individual for what he is, not to which group he belongs. Judge me for who I am, and for what I think is right and how I act. Do not lump together with Saul Alinsky and George Soros. Believe me, I detest them just as much as you apparently do. I am a minority, with a minority, within a minority, within a minority. I am an American who is Jewish (but not an American-Jew or a Jewish-American), I am obserant, but skeptical, and I am conservative

Finally, atheism is not restricted to my errant co-religionists. Have you heard of Richard Dawkins and Chistopher Hitchens (who is an equal opportunity hater of both Christianity and Judaism)? If I knew more, and there are, I would name them.

Correction to my earlier posting: I did not mean Crowley, I meant Cramer. I will also rephrase what I said: Mr. Cramer you have opened up a can of worms on a truly trivial matter.

Your post is hypocritical; you say not to judge ALL the Jews as a group for what some say/do, and then you turn around and judge all Europeans as a group (and Americans – the “good” Europeans who left Europe) for what some have done or are doing, as for example in your statement:

” I always make a point of telling my co-religionsts that Christians in America are different, mainly because they are Americans, not Europeans. As far as I can tell, that has been the case almost since America was settled. (It is as if all the good Christians left Europe for America.)”

You seem quite comfortable doing this – you keep repeating it in all your posts. You can’t have it both ways I’m afraid Jack. But beyond that, you seem to not be aware of the side, collateral, neighborhood, collective, external (however you wish to call them) effects of indivudual actions. When I let my property deteriorate, all properties in the neighborhood lose value. So what Soros does affects perceptions about all Jews, whether it’s fair or not. It’s part of life. Now, I don’t judge you personally for anything – I don’t know you. In return, I would ask that you don’t judge me personally, since you don’t know me. So spare me your adjectives/names/characterizations, they’re meaningless.

But going back to the substance of the issue: you don’t seem to understand the magnitude of the BC/AD topic, and because you either don’t get it or don’t wish to get it, you want all Christians to agree with you, change their customs/values, and to accept what makes you feel comfortable, no matter whether or not this makes them (the vast majority of the population in this country that is) uncomfortable.

That’s pretty much what muslims want to do in the West, America and Europe as well. Because they wish to go by sharia law since they don’t like western values, they want all to accept it or force it on them. How is that different from what you and your colleagues wish to do with this BC/AD issue, and all other issues I discussed on the previous post?

Christianity goes by the motto “turn the other cheek” and not by the “eye for an eye” one. However, this kindness by Christians has been exploited and misconstrued by many as “Christians are suckers.” Well, that’s pretty much over now, simply because Christianity is being threatened and it’s driven to extinction by it’s own willingness to accommodate and tolerate its enemies, those who in effect wish to eliminate it from the face of the Earth.

JJ – Here is what you said (to repeat one more time): “if Jews are to constantly antagonize Christians, then the reaction they will receive might not be very different than that the muslims and islamists are receiving here and now.” I am quoting exactly what you said. Now fill in the blanks. Tell me exactly what will happen to us Jews of America (a few, some, many, all) if we don’t toe your line? Do we get thrown into concentration camps, get thrown out of the country, get discriminated against, have quotas imposed on us, treated like second class citizens? Tell me what you are threatening us with.

PS ‘Turn the other cheek’ is a variant from Lamentations, an originally Jewish composition, and the Jewish interpretation of an ‘eye for an eye’ is monetary compensation. You obviously do not know such matters.

I didn’t theaten you with anything (if you’re paranoid that’s your problem). I expressed to you my view that if Jews keep antagonizing Christians (in the West) there will be reaction from the Christians, as it is now with the muslims who want to establish sharia law here in the US and in Europe. No one is talking about the stuff you’re talking about.

But since you are bringing now a theological issue (about ‘cheeks’ etc being Jewish and not Christian notions – another insult to Christianity) let me bring up a more basic point, although I’m not a theologian: Jews treat Christ as another Jew who didn’t follow Judaism to your satisfaction; certainly you don’t recognize him as a Messiah. Even muslims treat Christ better than you do, they view him as a prophet along with Abraham and their “prophet.” To Jews, Christ is just another of the many messiah wannabes that had been encountered in Judea.

Do you see by any chance a fundamental incongruity here? Some sort of an assymetric relationship?

Christians accept the Old Testament and its tenets, but you don’t accept the New Testament, or Mary the Mother of Christ, etc and its tenets. In effect you don’t consider the Christian God as being Yahweh, the Jewish God, as much as you don’t consider allah to be Yahweh. Is that so?

Sorry, but it does not wash: Pointing an accusatory finger at the writer is plain silly. Mr Crowley has his opinion, you have yours, and a number of people have theirs. It would be best to stop harping on some unpleasant, controversial points, and let it all pass. What was said once, does not need repeating.

However, if you think the original point was trivial, then you demonstrate either lack of perception, or flawed judgment. It is time to step back and chill out. Even better, sleep on it.

It is trivial because in a country mostly by Christians, the BC/AD system is what is expected. As I said earlier, others might prefer to use a different system, but the kind of reaction I see here is to say the least a bit shocking. What started out as an “academic” discussion has degenerated into threats by JJ about Jews having to know their place in America, or else. I have pointed an accustory finger at JJ because he seems to consider Jews as second class citizens who better watch their p’s and q’s or else. What is the, or else, that he has in mind? That is why I said is trivial.

Since you keep bringing up this “second class citizen” issue (which I didn’t) let me say, Christians certainly won’t accept THEM being treated as inferior to the “God’s chosen ones” in their own country. Or do you wish them to, so that you can feel happy?

“If we wrote everything, “Tiberius came to power in the Year of Our Lord 27,” yes, that would be pretty heavy theology.”

But writing “AD 27″ (or “27 AD”) is writing “the Year of Our Lord 27″; it’s just abbreviated. Did you cringe a bit at Sarah Palin’s joke about Obama’s use of “Winning The Future” in the SotU address? Using an abbreviation with a specific meaning is, ultimately, equivalent to using the full phrase.

Using CE acknowledges a reality – that Christian-Era data is in common use. Using “AD” implies a great deal more – that “Jesus is Lord”. I don’t want to say or imply that, because Jesus is not my Lord.

“I don’t want to say or imply that, because Jesus is not my Lord” with an emphasis on ‘not’.

That’s a cheap shot at Christianity, the dominant religion in the US and Europe, and in fact of all Western societies. You probably live in a Western society by choice. Why don’t want to accept its cultural identity? Isn’t this what islamists also do? Isn’t your statement as offensive to Christians as Obama’s statement that ‘America isn’t a Christian nation’?

It is obviously NOT a shot of kind against Christianity, especially not a ‘cheap’ shot. You have descended both too quickly and too easily into hyperbole.

The write simply states that required use of a phrase that mandates his endorsement of a religious precept he disagrees with, and is in fact ANTITHETICAL to his own views is unacceptable.

For example, Jews are flat-out and unequivocally FORBIDDEN by their religion to ‘swear to G-d’ for any reason. Thus, they are allowed to substitute the word ‘affirm’ when they take government oaths. Religions that require the drinking and blessing of wines or other alcohols were granted that exemption during Prohibition.

For YOUR statement to be correct, and for this to be a ‘cheap shot’ against your religion, it follows that one with your view must further consider ANY failure to accept and incorporate common and popular Christian practice into personal practice is a shot against Christianity. In short – failure to BE a Christian is an insult to Christianity, which has been the general Christian line for most of its history until recent times.

Either you believe in some sort of religious tolerance, or you don’t. Asking a sincerely religious person (who by definition accepts their own religion’s beliefs) to accept Christ as Lord by default is asking a hell of a lot in the name of convenience. Where do you want to draw this line of “we’re the majority, so everyone has to do what we want?” Shall we go BACK to the laws forcing mandatory church attendance for all, even non-believers? Force stores to close on Sundays? It is from these small points of contention that huge ones grow, as well as fostering an underground tone of intolerance and always making the minority feel to be ‘other’ and ‘less than.’

I am Jewish. I don’t object to all the Christmas stuff and music every year, I tolerate getting called ‘Scrooge’ because I don’t put lights on my house, I smile and thank the clearly well-meaning person who address me in Jesus’ name with innocuous remarks. I use the regular calendar because that’s the one we all know. However, there is no way in hell I am going to tacitly refer to Jesus as MY Lord on daily documents with the use of Anno Domini. That would be as fundamental a betrayal of the most basic tenets of Judaism as there could be, and for the Christian majority to ask THAT of the minority IS unreasonable.

KTg, I am sorry that you find it insulting that I do not worship the man that you think is your savior, and that I do not consider him to be mine. No one in this discussion is trying to stop you from referring to him that way. I have an obligation to be killed rather than to refer to him that way. It is not an obligation that I am eager to fulfill, and in the US, mercifully, there has seldom been need to.

Raoul Ortega “And how does the Common Era calendar handle the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars,” AFAIK, the same way that the Gregorian calendar does. There is no zero in BCE/CE either. The denotation of the year is identical to the Christianic system; only the abbreviations are changed.

JJ – Much of Christianity is (in its moral form) is a variant of Judaism, and much of what you find in the New Testament Gospels has roots deep in Judaism. In fact, the Gospels can be mined to cast light on Jewish practices in the 1st century. Indeed, I think the description of the Last Supper cast light on practices at the Passover Seder at that time. Moreover, the fact that Jesus used a variant of a phrase from Lamentations is not to belittle Christianity at all. Given Jesus’ Jewish background, I would expect him to rely on Jewish sources. (Paul is a different matter.) Also, I, and I think most Jewish scholars of early Christianity, do not view Jesus as an errant Jew. He was a little unhappy with how the Priests were running the Temple, but he was not the only one. Some might have considered him errant, but there were many different views of normative Judaism at that time. My own feeling is that the group confronting him for supposed violation of the Sabbath really comprised Sadducees, not Pharisees. That is because the latter were much more lenient than the former. They would have given him a pass because what he did was for sustenance of life, and that trumps Sabbath laws. (For reasons debated by scholars, the name were changed in the Gospels.)

As to how we view Jesus as a Messiah, that is a different matter. First, a few words about the term: Messiah in Hebrew (mah’shiach) means annointed. People who succeed to two important offices are supposed to be annointed: the king and the High Priest. (I make a joke to my co-religionists about who was the first messiah in Israel: It was Aaron, Moses’ brother, because he was the first High-Priest, at least according to the Pentateuch. Note: Herod was also a messiah.) Since Jesus was not a priest, if he would be annointed it would have to be as king, and because the future king (the messiah) of Israel is supposed to come from the House of David, Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’ ancestry back to David. Also, that Jesus’ claim as messiah (the annointed king) would explain INRI on the cross. One other thing, the fact the Jesus claimed to be messiah can be connected to the idea that he is the son of God. Look at II Sam. 7:14 where God tells David that his son (who will be annointed king = messiah) will become the son of God (in an adoptive sense).(Note, again, the deep, deep Jewish roots of the New Testament Gospels.)

If Jews do not accept Jesus as a messiah, it is because Jewish history in that period did not turn out very pretty (a Temple destroyed, a major rebellion in 130-35 squashed and many killed). Jesus, thus, could not have been the messiah the Jews were expecting for their salvation. Also, the refusal of the then messiahnic (Christian) Jews to help the other Jews in those rebellions then led to a parting of the ways; and of course, Paul’s mission to the non-Jews of the world, wherein he dismissed Jewish practices, sealed the division between Christianity and Judaism.

As for how we Jews view the Christian God, that depends on whom you ask. In my early life, I could not see the Christian God as being YHWH. In Judaism, God is viewed as indivisible, and to me at that time, three did not equal one. As I got older, though, and I intentionally learned more about Christian theology, I came to understand the components of the triune Christian God as being manifestations of the same God rather than being separate entities. Thus, I have come around to the notion, that the Christian God and the Jewish God are the same, as it should be. I will admit, though, that many Jews, because they have not read up on Christian theology, simply do not understand that. I have tried to explain that to my co-religionists by anaologizing it to Judaism’s notions of God’s having Divine manifestations. Sometimes it falls on deaf ears.

Finally, let me point out, if you think Christians are falling away from the true path of Christianity, then it behooves you and other Christians to try and steer them back to that path. Don’t blame the Jews for that. Remember, from my point of view, Jews are falling away from the true path as well, which is why only about 20% of Jews in America remain observant. I fear that in the not too distant future, that 20% will be all that’s left.

Now, isn’t this a better way to discuss issues than accusing people of anti-semitism etc?

I’m neither a theologian, as I have already stated, nor an expert on Christianity or Judaism. I’m just a plain ordinary Christian. So, I can’t elaborate on your points in any great detail, except to make a few generic ones.

Whether Christianity is a variant or branch of Judaism or not: you think so, but that’s not what the vast majority of Christians think. They think that Christianity was influenced certainly by Judaism – but it isn’t a variant of it; in fact far from it: it’s an independently derived set of dogmas and it could have been influenced by Greek thought more so than Judaism (for example, no one knows for sure who wrote Mark’s Gospel, Luke and John were Greeks, and much of what is contained in the Christian Gospels was determined by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, set up by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine – thus heavily being influenced by the prevailing then Greek culture at Byzantium).

More than the roots and influences on Christianity however, is the manner in which Christianity and its tenets are viewed by non-Christians. Since you personally view our God to be your God as well, then I must accept your views as offerred in good faith and this realization as a good sign, which I applaud. You mention though that this isn’t what your co-religionists think, and I agree with you and this is an issue.

In any case, I welcome your post and the spirit in which it was offerred.

One final point if I may; like a good conservative, I shouldn’t always blame others, for example the Jews (as you point out) or the muslims, or the atheists etc for what we Christians do or what is happening to Christianity. In fact, there’re many useful idiots within our own ranks, bashing Christianity from within as well.

However, I’m hopeful that this resurgence of Conservatism in the US (and in Europe to an extent) might reverse the tide.

Dating by Anno Domini has the flaw of not having a year 0. (The concept of “zero” having been invented after the start date of the calendar was set.) That’s why the start of the third millenium was the year 2001 AD. So why does the so-called Common Era calendar repeat that mistake by referring to dates before 1 January 1 CE as “BCE”? Why is the death of G.Julius Caesar take place in 44BCE and not in 43BCE?

And how does the Common Era calendar handle the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and when did that transition occur? And in this case, there’s not even a particular day it can point to, since the dates of the change overs depends on the country and culture and range from 1582AD to 1920AD.

Astronomers have recognized all these various problems by using the Julian Day system (Scaliger, not Gaius, by the way.)

I think the real problem here is that folks who are under thought assault, as the rational are against the PC police, see ANYTHING coming from the other side as a hideous encroachment. Taken to extremes, that would make (for example) an opinion against common citizens owning tanks to be interpreted as an attack on the second amendment. It can get silly.

In short, the PC brigade is not wrong about everything. Some of the antiquated nonsense in language and culture SHOULD go. When introducung a woman in a formal situation, her marital status is irrelevant, thus the replacement of ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs.” with ‘Ms.’ just as men go with the single salutation ‘Mr.’ This is reasonable, isn’t it?

The world tends to use the modern western calendar because it’s convenient. For internal or strictly religious/cultural matters (calculating holidays, etc), many cultures use their own ancient ones – but for the sake of simplicity we all use the common calendar, just as the current international language is English. If you want, the simplist justification is that the birth of Christ (or a year near to it) was used by what is now the world’s most dominant culture to be the base point of the calendar. SOME point had to be used, why not that one? For the sake of ease, the world will use that one. However, it is a bit tacky to ask the 5/6 of the planet that ISN’T Christian to also use a phrase that literally means accepting a religious precept they don’t. This isn’t political correctness run amuck, or an assault on Western Civ or even Christianity – it’s simply a convenient and fairly meaningless concession to genteel sensibility, like calling a female fireman a ‘firefighter.’ Big deal.

If it bugs some so much, how using BZP and AZP – Before Zero Point, and After Zero Point? After all, every calendar has to have one. It’s an easy, simple concession. This entire stupid debate reminds me of the full year it took the North Koreans to come to the peace table in 1952, because they wouldn’t stop griping about the shape of the table and the size of the flags.

People here should look into the Holocene calendar – where the year is 12011! By assigning the date 1 BC the value 10,000 – linking it to a long accepted historical divide, as Mr. Reardon wishes do do above, it all at once places ancient civilizations and a fair amount of human prehistory on one timeline, while preserving all those dates we’ve already committed to memory. Thus the French Revolutuon took place in 11789 and so forth. I don’t have the figures at hand for the ancient dates, but I can assure you that the psychological advantage of seeing an orderly procession from early human settlements to major civilizations combined with the (now) easy historical math and the riddance of having to switch from the negative number line to the positive in the casecof persons, institutions and societies that straddle the divide. Jesus is born in 9995 and dies in 10028. Rome is founded in 9246 and the empire ends in 10476 ( if that is your preferred date). The utility is especially pronounced when dealing with Egyptian civilization, almost all of which is trapped on the wrong side of the BC/ AD divide. Plus, the Holocene calendar puts us in our own far future, which has the effect of reducing the illusion of ‘progress’. You don’t have to spend long with the HE to realize that we didn’t magically arrive here in just 2000 years – much closer to 8000. This only really becomes apparent when everything is laid out on one number line. It has the natural effect of providing perspective, and thus humility, on users. And, naturally, there is the fun of living in the one hundred and twenty first century! I myself was born in the hundred and twentieth century – 11967, to be exact. To see my birthdate and lifespan as part of a single numerical continuum with the foundation of Rome in 9246 gives me perspective, continuity, and even a little hope – plus a better idea of just how small my lifespan is, comparatively. Anyway, I recommend the Holocene Calendar to everyone. Do some googling – I think there are some good timelines up! I salute my fellow citizens of the Year 12011!

Why not 700,000 BC? The more far back you go certainly the more ‘continuity’ you get. And while at it, why not adopt the Chinese or the Jewish calendar? With them, along with the ones I suggested, you might even be able to accommodate your “Egyptian” concern.

Playing further along these lines, so that you might get the absurdity of it all, maybe we should adopt 3,2 MYA as a Y1, that’s when Lucy died in case you forgot.

Just in case you’ve missed the whole point, and I think you have – it isn’t the whatever year-number the issue here; the issue is the terms BC/AD and what they connote, which Christians wish to maintain.

The ephemeral French Revolutionary (Republican) Calendar of the radical atheist left, the Jacobins:

didn’t last long after it was adopted in 1793 AD for two simple reasons: it was arbitrary and stupid, as are all suggestions being made here by commenters who in reality they wish to ban the Christian terms and try to sugar coat it with pseudo-scientific reasoning.

The Holocene is the current geological era, which very conveniently is dated from 12000 years ago, making it perfect for calendrics. There is nothing anti-Christian about it! Here, I’ll show you:

“The current year in the Holocene Calender is 12011, Anno Domini. See how easy?

Here’s a theological brain puzzler: exactly what years would not be years of Our Lord? And in your dumb system, we use Latin to count forward from a year we now know not to be Christ’s birth year and English to count backwards from it. You should at least change BC to AC for some consistency.

The HE calendar doesn’t have to worry about what comes “before the year zero” since the geological ages prior to it can be named or otherwise indicated when giving dates, e.g. “around the middle of the Jurassic”. See how easy?

Finally, your concern about synchronizing with the Chinese calendar: as it happens, the Japanese are, for reasons of their own, switching to the Jomon Calendar, which happens to synch precisely with the HE calendar. Problem solved!

Clayton, I’m Jewish, and I’m still using AD/BC until I die. It’s still the Triborough Bridge, too. We must insist on using our vocabulary. When I hear an old timer using Latin, I look it up. If people are going to simply fail to listen to or absorb anything we use in our vocabulary as it becomes politically correct, let HIM look it up.

Although I use MS because my mom kicked ass and still does and wanted me to, and also, I felt that since there was no male equivalent of that prefix, it was only fair. But I’d never correct someone.

Well, I grew up using BCE. (I actually thought it meant “common error”, no offense intended.) But I would certainly not try to stop Christians from using it.

On the other hand, I refuse to use Ms. I would have gone the other way, and make the young men use “Master”. For that matter, why not just use Missus (slang for Mistress, BTW) for any professional woman> I think that’s the old Jewish way. (We sort of adopted Mr. and Mrs., since in Aramaic it comes out as Sir and Madam.)

What took getting used to was calling a co-worker “young lady”, but in Israel that’s what’s expected, at least up to 40. (Yes, “young man” also.)

“So 300,000,000 Americans MUST change what they say to what YOU want, so that YOU can feel comfortable?”

That’s not what he said. He told you why HE wouldn’t use it, and neither would I, for the same reason. Nowhere did he say that all Americans have to change their terminology to fit yis. But if you responded to what he said instead of what you claim he said, you would have to admit that your outrate is both silly and intolerant.

Tell you what — instead of BCE/CE, would you be happier if I used the term that Jews have been using long before BCE/Ce gained currency — AS”N (the initials for the Hebrew words that mean “according to the Christian numbering)?

It would be “ls”n”, lisfrars haNotzrim (Nazerenes), no? Generaly we use LiMinyanam (accounding to their counting).

Generally, I just say “negative 300″.

I understand the author’s point, as long as I personally do not have to use it. My ancestors gave up their lives (*) for that sort of thing. I believe the president’s executive ordrs still have the whole “in the year of…” written out in English.

Well now we are all, 300 million of us, so relieved to learn that you two aren’t asking us to change the BC/AD designations after all this whining about them by non-Christians.

Thank you so much, we’re eternally grateful to you for your immense generocity in willing to accommodate our lowly concern; we thank you sincerely for your advanced notions and reasoning and the suggestion for a compromise.

I humbly wonder still (me the mentally inferior in service to your intellectual pre-eminent superiority), what exactly did it cause all these 200 or so comments on such a trivial, innocuous and stupid (obviously to you) subject. But please, don’t bother to respond to such mentally meek human being, it’s obviously unworthy of your valuable time and powerful brain power.